Ridley Scott: ‘Most Novelists Are Desperate to Do What I Do’

Your new film, “The Counselor,” stars Michael Fassbender as a lawyer who gets in over his head on a huge drug deal. It’s pretty harrowing. There’s a deep sense of stress that starts about halfway through, and you can’t put your finger on why. When you’re reading the script, it’s like there’s a series of cogs in a very clever clock. The cogs start to engage and — a good word is dread. And the dread sets in, and it stays there.

The script is by Cormac McCarthy. Anyone who’s familiar with his writing shouldn’t find the brutal tone of this film too surprising. It’s relentless. I think he writes the truth. Because life is like that most of the time in some shape or form, whether it’s illness or the end of the world. Cormac’s a writer’s writer. You read his writing and think, I can do that, and then you sit down and try. And you try, dude.

He doesn’t seem like a screenwriter who’d welcome a lot of studio notes. Reading this script — it was so fast and precise and crystal clear. I sat for a moment and then picked up the phone and called up the relevant person and said, “Get me a meeting with Cormac A.S.A.P.” That was Friday. I met him on a Monday, I think, in Albuquerque. We sat for about four hours in a hotel and we just chatted. And at the end of it, Cormac says, “Shall we?” And I said, “Yeah, we should.”

As a director, do you ever feel jealous of a novelist, who is able to work with no interference? No, because most novelists are desperate to do what I do.

You’re known as a director who excels at creating alternate universes. Universe to me is, if you’d like, the final character. Your landscape in a western is one of the most important characters the film has. The best westerns are about man against his own landscape. I think people have lost the ability to do that.

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Ridley ScottCreditJude Edginton/Redux, for The New York Times

You weren’t the first choice as director for your breakout film, “Alien,” in 1979. How did you get the job? I was fifth in line. I think just before me they gave Bob Altman a read. I love Bob Altman’s work right through to “Gosford Park,” but I’m thinking: “Alien”? He wouldn’t have any interest in that. But I was reading it, and half my brain switched into art direction. The one big thing you have to get right is the monster. Otherwise it’s a guy in a rubber suit.

Were you interested in doing the sequel? I’d have done “Aliens” if they’d offered it to me.

You were passed over? Yeah. Well, welcome to Hollywood.

What were the complaints about the film? The first film had absolutely no fat. It was all lean. People said the characters weren’t developed enough. I said, “What do you need to know when you’ve got an alien charging down the hall after you?” Get real. You’ve got this monster that’s gonna rip your head off in 20 minutes.

Recently Steven Spielberg said Hollywood is too addicted to blockbusters — that this model is not sustainable. Do you agree? I do. People are going into these things inexperienced. They’ll do a little movie, and suddenly their next movie is going to cost $160 million, and they’ve barely even talked to an actor. I may sound like an old fart, but I’m not. The studio system can’t take five, six disasters in a year.

What is your movie-watching routine like? Not good. I don’t go to the cinema often anymore — I’d rather just pop in a disk and get the biggest monitor you’ve got, and if the quality is superb, I can watch a film, and if I don’t like it I can pop it out. I tend to watch a lot of lower-budget movies to find out what’s doing down there and find out who’s coming up.

Your next film, “Exodus,” is a massive Moses-wandering-through-the-desert epic, which seems ambitious. I’ve got it fairly well plotted out. I’m an atheist, which is actually good, because I’ve got to convince myself the story works.

Maybe this project will change your perspective on religion. If I go over budget, definitely.

INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page 12 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: 'The Dread Sets In, And It Stays There'. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe